Recurring Nightmare
by Tortured Remorse
Summary: It's obvious that the death of your ex-girlfriend would give you nightmares. For Eli Goldsworthy, a familiar nightmare becomes shockingly real...and different from the other ones he had...


The dreams always start out the same.

Well. If only there were actually _dreams_. They are more precisely, _nightmares._

It's the same street, every time.

I could be hanging out with Adam, or in school walking the halls aimlessly. The nightmare doesn't seem to care what I've been dreaming about. The hallways become longer with each passing moment. Doors lead to even longer hallways. Once I begin to recognize that the nightmare is descending, I begin to feel panic claw at my heart. And that's usually when the roof rips off suddenly and after going through one more door, it always becomes a street that stretches far beyond what my eyes could see.

It's unavoidable by this time. I have to walk down this road. I've tried in other nightmares to try and find a way of getting out without taking the road but no matter what direction I go in, the road eventually finds me.

So, once the nightmare begins, I stick to the street.

I always walk for what feels like miles on end. With only a dim light illuminating every half a mile or so. It's strange; I don't feel tired as I walk down this street. I simply feel pure terror building with every step. My body screams in protest. My mind screams danger.

I want to stop.

Something whispers that if I stop, I might die on this terribly frightening street.

I have no intentions of dying in this nightmare.

It always feels like that there's someone behind me. No. Not someone. Some_thing_. The hair on the back of my neck stand up and increases the terror that I feel. I don't want to go on. I don't want to take another step. But I can't stop. I always urge myself forward. I always try to ignore the terror that chills me to the bone. I try to think of the happiest thoughts that I can to balance the fear. It works for a time.

Just when I think that I can be able to drive the fear from my mind, that's when it gets worse.

It starts with a trail of blood. Just small drops at first. I don't stop to examine them for the fear of the unknown shadow that feels like it's breathing down my neck. It slowly expands from the drops to smears. Short smears. Like a child playing with finger paint.

I think of children smiling and laughing. It keeps me distracted from this terrible place for another blissful moment.

That too, ends.

Finally, at what looks like the end of the street, one final streetlight. It's lightly illuminating the body that lies in a pool of blood, horrifically contorted. In no way that the human body should ever be contorted.

A small distance away from the body, the bicycle that is in just as bad a shape as she is.

I know who is lying there. I know that I must approach the body. I know everything that I have to do. I never, ever, _wanted _to look at her this way. The nightmares doesn't normally end until I do. I have to look into her lifeless eyes. I have to carve another wound onto my soul before I can leave this world and finally be surrounded by light. Potential happiness. A world that's not quite as frightening as this one.

As I take the final steps in this once-again-happening dream, something seems to shift. I feel a terrible tightening around my whole body. This was unusual. This had never happened in any of my nightmares prior.

My fear doubles and I feel tears spill from my eyes. I cannot help it. This is hell, I just know it.

"Eli..."

My heart skips a few beats as I question what I had just heard. Again, this is something that has never happened before. It's impossible that it's her. She's been dead every time before.

"ELI!"

Her shriek causes me to jump; more tears spill as I hear faint sobbing coming from the direction of Julia.

"Julia?" I asked, my voice shaking terribly. That's the first time that her name ever emerged from my lips. I had never dared to say her name in this hellish world. I was always quiet. _Always. _Fear kept me quiet.

"Eli... Eli..."

Her body began to move.

I can feel my body begin to shake. I take a few more steps closer to her body unwillingly. Maybe if I move closer, she'll stop trying to move.

"Eli, help me!"

I take a few more steps closer to her. She's trying to move her contorted body but if she moves, that will only cause her pain. "Julia," I find the strength to say, "Don't... Don't move, okay?"

She doesn't listen; my voice seems to agitate her and she continues to try and move. "Eli... I'm sorry."

_How in the hell is she having the strength to talk? _I find myself wondering. From this angle, she shouldn't be able to talk. At all. She _should _be dead.

_But she's not. _"Not this time..." I mutter under my breath, hoping she wouldn't hear me.

"Eli, please... Look at me..."

Finally. I can look at her and depart. I approach her body slowly, getting down on one knee as best I can. Her head turns towards me and her eyes are not lifeless. They're filled with terrible pain and shock but very much alive. Human.

I close my eyes for a moment, knowing that this would be the end of the dream. As a few seconds pass, I open them again.

I am still here. Looking into her pleading eyes.

"Eli." As she speaks, blood spills from her lips onto her chin and downwards. "Hold...hold me..."

_Hold her? _I think to myself in horror. Surely this is not what the real Julia would have wanted. The real Julia would have never asked me to hold her. She probably would have told me that it should have been me on the bike and the car should have hit me.

I can't bring myself to touch her. The thought of touching her in this state appalled me. I simply look away and shake, my hands balling into fists as my vision begins to swim with spilling tears.

"Hold me... please..."She begged, tears in her eyes now.

Words are now beyond me. I try to open my mouth to protest but my voice is now gone. It's only Julia who can speak. She continues to insist that I hold her. I shake my head. I want her to be _quiet _now. This has been the worst nightmare by far.

That's when her body begins to shake. It seems to have finally hit her; her eyes clench shut as the pain seems to begin to overwhelm her. She screams and my head feels like it's about to explode.

_I have to do this. _I said to myself, justifying touching her in this horrid state.

I pull her body as gently as I could, until her upper body was in my lap. I cradle her head in my hands and rock back and forth helplessly. I look up into the pitch-black sky of this hell.

"I'm sorry!" I sobbed. "I'm so sorry!"

I look back down at Julia, hoping for that chance to tell her that I'm sorry for what I said. She might have been in terrible pain but she could hear my apology. She could know that I'm sorry.

Her eyes were lifeless; her body had gone limp in my arms. She was beyond sorrow now. Beyond apology.

"No...No... Julia...please..."

I try to shake her back to life. She couldn't have left me like this. She was alive! She had talked! She had wanted me to hold her! Why did she go right before I expressed my greatest regret?

I put her body down just as gently as I could and looked over to where the street seemed to cut off.

I stumble into the darkness...


End file.
